Couscous Salad Recipe

Couscous salad is a perfect make-ahead salad for days when you just can’t be bothered to give a flyin’ fark. I mean, just look at it. It’s beautiful. A salad like this will cheer you up (and fill you up) in two seconds flat.

I came up with this couscous salad recipe as a little teaser-recipe for my new show series on ulive: Lunch Lady! Lunch Lady is a 12-episode series all about lunch. Lots of make-ahead salads and sandwich recipes, DIY frozen burritos, plus a few ideas for the kids’ lunch boxes (but adults will like those, too). The idea behind the show is to make packing a lunch easier for everyone. Packing a lunch is usually healthier than eating lunch out, and it will definitely save you cash, homies! Check out Lunch Lady (videos are free!) for more recipes. New Lunch Lady episodes will release every Wednesday and Friday through August on ulive.

Back to the couscous salad recipe, here it is. Feel free to add some cooked chickpeas or kidney beans or cheese to this for extra vegetarian protein, or top it with leftover grilled or roasted chicken for non-vegetarian protein.

Couscous Salad Video

(Video upload schedule has moved to Tuesdays, FYI. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to get notified of new videos.)

Put the couscous in a large heat-safe bowl with the garlic and coriander. Pour boiling water over and cover with a plate. Let sit 5 minutes. Fluff with fork. Let cool at room temperature while you chop the vegetables.

Drizzle olive oil, lemon juice over the couscous and toss gently.

Fold in remaining ingredients except almonds and taste to adjust for salt.

Comments

This sounds fantastic! I’m always looking for recipes to make a week’s worth of lunches.

BTW, back before I kicked type 2 diabetes’ ass through exercise and weight loss, I tried doing it through what I ate. Rice was at the top of the list of foods to avoid. Loving Indian, Thai and Chinese food I thought I was really going to suffer. But I googled “rice substitute” and found cauliflower suggested by a ton of people. Chop up a head and toss the chunks into a food processor and pulse until it looks like rice. It took awhile (since I only knew one recipe for a couscous…until now) but I eventually found that it makes a great substitute for couscous as well. Well, great if you don’t want or can’t eat rice or pasta, but from a cooking-from-a-pantry point of view, rice and couscous are far more convenient.

So happy you kicked the diabetes out, Randy! I had not heard that good new update yet, I don’t think. Yay! Tons of exercise is the only thing that really keeps my dad’s type 2 diabetes in check (of course he also has to watch what he eats, but it’s really amazing the difference exercise makes in control).

We love that cauliflower “rice”. I think it would probably work great here, too, served hot I imagine.

I’ve pretty much determined that eating rice, pasta and couscous once or twice a month isn’t going to affect my a1c levels significantly. And keeping it restricted to that isn’t at all a hardship. But I think that Donna’s suggestion of substituting quinoa for couscous is genius. I’ll be able to make a Moroccan-style vegetable tagine and not have any health concerns whatsoever!

I had to laugh a couple of weeks ago when I followed the link in a newsletter email for a recipe called curried cauliflower rice something or another, thinking it would be a recipe for “curried cauliflower” and rice. But it was for curried “cauliflower rice”. And then there was the grilled cauliflower steak recipe calling for slicing a head of cauliflower into “steaks” and grilling them. I didn’t try it, but was inspired to substitute “cauliflower steaks” for the chicken in chicken piccata. As a substitute for the chicken, it didn’t work so well: the “steak” crumbled into florets. It tasted fine, but the visual effect was lacking.

Made this, as well as a major mess in the kitchen, tonight for dinner!! I added a touch of sriracha sauce to it. This is an amazing dish. Thank you so much for sharing. I have a picture but don’t think I can add it here.

Hi Hilah. I’m pretty new to your blog, website and facebook page and I am having a lot of fun following you. I know the couscous salad recipe was posted a couple years ago and I see in your writing that you had videos called “lunch lady.” I tried to connect via your link, but I can’t find your videos. Is there a secret you can share with me to find them? I look forward to trying your recipes and following you for a long time.
Thank you.
Karen

Cook quinoa in 1 cup water
Combine oil, lime, onions, apple and seasoning in a large bowl and mix.
Add drained beans and cooled quinoa and stir gently.
Serve over napa cabbage
Serve with cotija cheese if you like

Hi, I’m Hilah!

I create short-form, educational, and occasionally hilarious cooking videos geared towards beginner and intermediate cooks, as well as people who are just looking for simple, low-cost recipes. Everything is made from scratch, people! Read More…